Julia Tyler

First Lady

• Born: May 4, 1820
• Birthplace: Gardiners Island, New York
• Died: July 10, 1889
• Place of death: Richmond, Virginia

President:John Tyler, 1841-1845

Overview

Julia Tyler was an atypical First Lady for her time. She set a regal standard for the White House, thus elevating the presidency, by all appearances, to one of American nobility. As the wife of John Tyler, the first vice president to ascend to the presidency upon the death of an incumbent, Julia blazed her own trail. She was young and flirtatious, had courtly manners, and used her looks and tenacity to gain public and legislative support for both her and her husband’s causes. She remains today as one of a select few First Ladies whose beauty, poise, and stature drew the attention of the entire nation.

Early Life

Julia’s father, David Gardiner, was a descendant of English immigrants who had come to America and settled in Connecticut in 1635. Her grandfather Lion Gardiner had purchased a 3,300-acre island off the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, which bore the family’s name: Gardiners Island. Julia Gardiner was born the third of four children on May 4, 1820, to David and Juliana Gardiner. She was the Gardiners’ first daughter, and she grew up in the posh surroundings of East Hampton, Long Island.

A Yale College graduate, Julia’s father practiced law in New York, managed the family’s extensive property holdings, and was later elected to the New York state senate. Juliana McLachlan Gardiner, Julia’s mother, was the daughter of a wealthy brewmaster. She was known to have been highly opinionated and exerted a dominating influence over the lives of her husband and children.

In 1835, Julia began her formal education at boarding school. She attended Madame N. D. Chagaray’s Institute in New York City. Her major studies of interest were arithmetic, history, English composition, French literature, and music. Brought up to believe in her own social superiority, she also internalized her father’s deep fear of monetary insolvency. Julia was considered quite beautiful for her day. Short and slightly plump, with dark eyes and black hair, she was high-spirited and adept at flirtation, which, along with her family’s social prominence, would serve her well in her adult life.

Julia was learned in social propriety, but as an adventurous young lady, she pushed the bounds of propriety by posing for a Bogert & Mecamly dry goods and clothing store lithograph advertisement in 1839. This was the first time a lady of New York’s upper class had personally endorsed a retail establishment. The well-to-do Gardiners were so embarrassed by Julia’s overt impropriety that, in 1840, they took her away from New York City until things settled down. Julia’s travels included a year-long excursion to Europe, where she found herself attracting a number of prominent suitors before her return home in the late summer of 1841.

In 1842, Julia’s father took her to Washington, D.C., for the winter season. The Gardiners’ wealth granted Julia access to the elite circles of Washington society. It was through attending these social gatherings that Julia would eventually be invited to the White House and introduced to the recently widowed President John Tyler.

Marriage and Family

Julia’s flirtatious nature attracted prestigious suitors from the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. However, she was most taken by President Tyler; at fifty-four, he was thirty years her elder. In 1844, they both attended a social event aboard the warship USS Princeton. During the firing of a new cannon, the gun exploded, killing several guests, including Julia’s father, Senator Gardiner. After this tragic incident, Julia grew closer to the president. After several proposals she finally agreed to marry him. They were wed in a quiet ceremony in New York City at the Church of the Ascension on June 26, 1844. Her bridesmaid was her sister, Margaret, and the best man was her brother Alexander. Several of John’s seven children from his first wife, Letitia Christian Tyler, were hurt and angered by his marriage to twenty-four-year-old Julia, and it took many years for some of them to accept her as their stepmother. After a short honeymoon at the Tylers’ Virginia estate, Sherwood Forest, the couple quickly returned to Washington and the White House.

By all accounts, their marriage was a loving one. They enjoyed music, and John, a well-trained violinist, was often accompanied by Julia on guitar. They also were avid animal lovers, maintaining a menagerie of pets at Sherwood Forest. Julia Tyler was a wealthy Northerner who had embraced the southern lifestyle, complete with its grandiose, slave-run plantations. She and her northern relatives consistently were at strained relations as the Civil War grew nearer, and she freely talked of her acceptance of states’ rights, slavery, and secession. Her marriage to John gave her prestige and a broader social life both in the North and in the South.

One known drawback to their marriage was that John was quite jealous of Julia’s flirtations. Even after her marriage, Julia continued to flirt with powerful and prestigious gentlemen who she felt could benefit her own causes as well as those of her husband. Though she did openly use her looks and position for her own devices, there is no evidence that she was ever unfaithful to her husband. Their romantic life flourished, as their seventh and last child was born when John was a spry seventy years old.

Presidency and First Ladyship

Julia Tyler, as the new First Lady, took Washington by storm in dazzling style. She viewed the office of president as royalty and was determined that it should be represented as such. With only eight short months remaining in the president’s term, Julia wasted no time in elevating the appearance and prestige of the White House. Although carrying on the official mourning period for her late father, she wore extravagant gowns in the mourning colors of white and black. She also wore jewelry, including one strand of jewels about her forehead that gave the appearance of a crown.

Mrs. Tyler also took her brief role as First Lady as an opportunity to brighten the White House walls. She was one of the first to begin extensive renovations to portions of the dark and dilapidated structure. She worked both to brighten the house physically and to make it the social centerpiece for Washington, if not the nation.

She hosted a number of opulent balls and invited huge crowds of the United States’ most prominent persons to attend. Once the word was out about her social masterpieces, she began to drastically shorten the guest lists, making the mystique of her invitations even more sought-after. She introduced the polka at her balls; this dance, which the president had forbidden his children to try, was all at once the forbidden rage of the nation.

Extremely conscious of public impression, Mrs. Tyler made history with the “hiring” of a press agent as well as befriending many news correspondents who would write her praises in their news releases. She was insistent upon coverage of her events in the newspapers catering to the social set, and she was not above writing her own reviews and getting them into print.

That Julia could be seen as young and daring was no doubt an attribute that attracted the president. The ever-so-young Mrs. Tyler drove around Washington in a carriage pulled by fine horses. Julia received her guests seated in a large, formal chair on a raised platform, as though imitating a queen, surrounded by several elegantly dressed “ladies-in-waiting.” She was also the first incumbent president’s wife to pose for a daguerreotype, the earliest form of photography.

Legacy

A glamour girl of her day, Julia Gardiner Tyler brought to the White House definite views on how the world should regard the president and the First Lady of the United States. Julia was considered by many to be the most beautiful First Lady up to that time. She brought style, elegance, and a heightened sense of regality to the White House. Like many of the First Ladies before her, she was devoted to her husband as a spouse, a working partner, and a confidante on legislative issues. She sought publicity to impress both her admirers and her critics. By elevating herself in the eyes of her peers, she also elevated her husband.

It was she who made the playing of “Hail to the Chief” a regular part of the introduction of the president at public appearances. She also helped her husband win legislative battles while in office and even continued to promote his contributions to the country long after his death.

After leaving the White House, John and Julia had seven children: David Gardiner “Gardie” Tyler (1846-1927), John Alexander “Alex” Tyler (1848-1883), Julia Gardiner Tyler (1849-1871), Lachlan Tyler (1851-1902), Lyon Gardiner Tyler (1853-1935), Robert Fitzwalter “Fitz” Tyler (1856-1927), and Pearl Tyler (1860-1947). The Tylers raised their children as Episcopalians although, in 1872, Julia and her youngest daughter converted to Roman Catholicism.

Julia also believed in the supernatural and in the prescient power of her dreams. In January, 1862, John Tyler—the only past U.S. president to serve in the Confederacy—was preparing to take his seat in the Confederate Congress. Julia joined her seventy-one-year-old husband in Richmond, Virginia, days before the two had planned to meet because she had dreamt that her husband was very ill. Upon arrival, Julia did indeed find him gravely ill. He died only two days later.

Following her husband’s death, she was left with seven children to raise and educate, and her land holdings were in great debt. After the Civil War, she was forced to sell one of her estates to the federal government for a fraction of its value, but she managed to maintain and even rebuild the war-ravaged Sherwood Forest. Julia also spent a number of years fighting for her right as a past First Lady to receive a pension. Because she was a Confederate sympathizer, Congress did not look favorably on this issue. She did finally win a five-year battle for a pension of five thousand dollars annually, which was equal to that received by the other living former First Ladies in 1882.

Julia spent the later years of her life trying to keep the memory of her husband’s accomplishments alive. She died in 1889 following a stroke and was laid to rest next to John in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Bibliography

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Caroli, Betty Boyd. First Ladies. Expanded ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 4th ed. New York: Barricade Books, 1993.

Gould, Lewis L., ed. American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy. New York: Garland, 1996.

Healy, Diana Dixon. America’s First Ladies: Private Lives of the Presidential Wives. New York: Atheneum, 1988.

Seager, Robert. And Tyler Too: A Biography of John and Julia Tyler. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.

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Watson, Robert P. The Presidents’ Wives: Reassessing the Office of First Lady. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2000.